


Meet and Greet

by cassowarykisses



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Mentions of various other characters - Freeform, Recreational Drug Use, Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 02:53:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1882356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassowarykisses/pseuds/cassowarykisses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magnus didn't even want to come to Rigel III. He . . . could admit a certain amount of relaxation was necessary, but this planet was, as they said, not his style. Unfortunately, it is totally Misfire's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meet and Greet

The Lost Light was docked in at Rigel III. Rodimus's insistence - Megatron hadn't wanted to, but they rarely agreed on anything. Ultra Magnus had backed Rodimus up. The crew was getting antsy, and, as alien as it felt to admit it, some (legal, sanctioned) fun might decrease the tension. And if a few crew members didn't come back, well, that would probably decrease the tension too. The less people who openly defied the captain, the easier this quest would go. 

And, of course, Rodimus had insisted he come with him down to the planet. Magnus hadn't really wanted to, but Nautica and Perceptor had agreed to stand guard over the engines. Anyways, the likelihood of Megatron being able or willing to pilot a ship by himself was minimal. And touring around with everyone else  _would_  help his image with the crew. He thought.

So he was in the tourist district, thanking . . . well, thanking whatever gods were out there that the inhabitants of Rigel III were close in size to Cybertronians. 

He was  _not_  thankful that the streets were packed. 

"Swerve?" Magnus called, glancing around his waist for the minibot. Damn. The crowd must've swallowed him. He briefly debated comming Swerve, but really, did Swerve want him following him around? Probably not. At the very least, he'd stop Swerve from going into the smaller stores by virtue of sheer size.

He was about to turn around and head off to one of the bars near the spaceport and hope that some of the crew had ended up there too when he caught sight of a distinctly Cybertronian outline, jet wings and all. He brightened; maybe whoever this was had bought a map. 

"Excuse me!" he called out, stepped through the crowd. At least his size had the advantage of clearing a path wherever he wanted to walk. 

Midway through the sentence he realized that the retreating back was nobody he recognized. He'd never let anyone onboard the Lost Light get that filthy. And it looked caked on his wings, not like he was some drunk ex-soldier who decided signing up for a mud fight was a wonderful idea. Thank you, Doubletap, for that experience. 

Well. Magnus stared for a second, and then continued on through the crowd. Most of the Cybertronians left off-planet were neutrals, he reminded himself. And the Decepticons were supposed to have disbanded. (Privately, he thought that any Decepticon who hadn't already come back to Cybertron and lain down arms had no intention of doing so. Most of the crew agreed, but they also agreed that telling the Captain would be a poor idea indeed.)

Catching up, Magnus tapped the unknown mech on the arm. He didn't really think he wanted to go so far as to touch his back, even his shoulders. From close up, they looked even more - ugh - unclean.

"Heeeey!" the mech spun around. The first thing Ultra Magnus noticed was his grin and out-of-focus optics. That didn't spell anything good. The second thing he noticed was the Decepticon symbols under a much thinner layer of grime.  _That_  spelled something worse. "Are you flirting with me?"

What. "Um." Magnus said.

"I knew it!" the Decepticon yelled, pumping his fist in the air. Ultra Magnus noted the drug-induced reverb of his voice with a growing sense of horror. "Fulcrum was all like 'Misfire, you aren't going to find any other Cybertronians out there,' and I said, 'no of course there are, and they'll find me first because my wings are prettiest,' and then he said 'well, there are plenty of sparkeaters who'd find you first because your wings are pretty, and anyway I don't even have wings, so yours are prettiest by default!' And you're not a sparkeater obviously, I know because I saw one waaaay back on Tlalak and it had holes in it and also it glowed." The jet paused. "It was just on the security footage, though," he continued at a more normal pace, slapping a hand against Magnus's chest. Magnus stared at it like it was an unpleasant organic. "Undermine said it was a prank by one of the other barracks, but he was a fragface and -"

"Stop!" Ultra Magnus said, pulling back. "No, I'm not – I’m not flirting with you! Who even  _are_  you?"

The Decepticon's wings drooped. "Oh." There was a moment of silence, and then he brightened again. "I'm Misfire! I mean, it wasn't always Misfire, there's a funny story behind that one -"

Ultra Magnus held up his hands, hoping for a break in the . . . words. He hated to call it a conversation. The war was over (officially), and he'd rescinded his rank as a Duly Appointed Officer, so he had no authority to arrest this mech. He was about as much a danger as a piece of crumpled metal, if he was too high to recognize Ultra Magnus. Didn't even appear to have a gun, Magnus noted, but if the name was accurate, that was probably a wise choice. Public intoxication wasn't an offense in this sector, as far as he knew, and he knew every law that he could download. "Just. Be quiet." he said, thinking back on his brief socialization lessons with Swerve. Those . . . hadn't covered this particular situation. "How about I walk you back to your commanding officer?"

"Noooo," the Decepticon moaned. "It's too soon!" He looked up at Magnus with pleading optics. "Seriously, he said five hours and it's only been three! I'm too young to leave this life of freedom!" 

Magnus shuttered his optics. "You're out of your mind." Privately, he was delighted at the refusal.

"You're out of your mind!" The jet exclaimed, pointing dramatically in the general direction of Magnus's head.

"I'm leaving," Magnus told him, turning on his heel. 

"But!" The Decepticon - Misfire, his automatic I.D. tags now told him. High chance of public intoxication, conduct unbecoming of an enlisted soldier. Potenial troublemaker, likelihood high – protested. “But but but-“ he darted after Magnus, half skipping to keep up.

It was an awkward way to walk, since the street was narrow, even if it was scaled for creatures their size. Walking two abreast, they managed to take up most of the road.

Magnus didn’t acknowledge him. It was hard, because Misfire was too out of it to be subtle. Whenever he caught up to Magnus, he would poke him in the back, which spurred Magnus to walk faster, which made Misfire run to catch up, which made him poke him again . . .

Finally, Magnus spun around and grabbed Misfire by the arm. Determinedly ignoring the sensation of grit beneath his fingers, he said, “Do you even know who I am?”

Misfire stared up at him. “You’re large?”

Magnus heaved a sigh and released. “Yes. I’m large.” There really was no hope for this one, he thought as they stood stopped in the middle of the street. The people around them were giving them dirty looks.

“You wanna see the Cosmic Carnival?” Misfire said suddenly, grinning again. “I was gonna take Fulcrum but he started looking like he was going to fall apart at the joints when I mentioned tightrope walking and geez, what a loser, not like they’re gonna make him go up there or anything.” Misfire continued, but Magnus switched off his audials.

Maybe if he just stood here, he’d leave. Admittedly, from his experiences with Swerve, some mechs would talk as long as there was a victim in the vicinity.

He was startled out of his daze by Misfire tugging on his arm. Quickly, he shook his arm, dislodging the Decepticon’s grip. “What is it?” he said, turning his audials back on.

“- picture.” Misfire finished.

“Wait –“ Magnus started, and was cut off by the bright flash of a camera. He squinted down at the chunk of something in Misfire’s hands. It must take pictures, because the light wasn’t nearly bright enough for a broken light grenade, but it looked melted down, like it had been pulled out of a smelter. Overall, it looked like it’d been dragged out of graveyard while looking for spare limbs.

Magnus suddenly hoped very much that Misfire had pulled it out of a dumpster a couple of streets back.

“Hey, you got a datapad?” Misfire asked. “I’ve gotta see this one, these buildings are so weird. They look grown, like giant gross plants, and _ew_ I would not want to live in one but I’ve never seen anything like them either, soooo my curiosity is winning out.” Suddenly, his face became serious. “Unless they start moving. Then my running-for-my-life instinct will win out.”

“Yes.” Magnus said. He watched at Misfire’s fingerprints left greasy stains on the screen. “You can keep it.”

“Really?” Misfire grinned. “Sweet. Loot!”

****

“Ugh,” Misfire said, sitting up with a groan. “I feel like my brain module was just crushed by one of the Warriors Elite, and then they put it back in my head and crushed my whole helm.”

No response.

He looked around. Oh, this was an alleyway. That probably explained the ache in his wings, and the lack of a berth or a crew.

He flipped on his comm. _You have 8 missed calls from Krok_ , his inbox prompted him. Aw slag.

“See, Misfire, that’s why you let them distract you while you drink,” he muttered. The sad optics! The disappointed tone! It was already making him feel like volunteering for hull duty. Wow, that was worse than being shot at. Even worse than having to head back to duty right after he’d finally tracked down some probably-decent circuit speeders.

Fumbling around on the ground beside him, he grabbed a datapad. He . . . hadn’t had that yesterday. Of all the stupid drunk purchases to make. Something practical. Fulcrum would be so proud of him, and Misfire didn’t think he could take that kind of nerdation in the same room as him.

Misfire hummed something alien and off-tune while he waited for the pad to boot up. C’mon, c’mon, he thought, ready to sit there for ages. To his surprise, it came right online. He better not have spent his whole allotment on a fancy new datapad. Uh-oh. It looked new, alright.

Blinking, Misfire looked at the alert. _You have 126 new photos._

“Hey, whatever,” he said to nobody in particular, and clicked on the folder.

Okay. Ground, ground, top of building, alien stranger, his feet, his legs, Autobot badge –

Misfire put the datapad down.

A few moments later, his curiosity got the better of it. Alrighty. Deep breaths, Misfire. His legs again, the Autobot’s legs, the sky, a bunch of blurry photos of the sidewalk, and – oh. Ohhhhh, that was Ultra Magnus.

“Oh frag,” Misfire said. “Fragfragfrag.”

**Author's Note:**

> Rigel III is the canonical home of Rorza, the Rocket-cycle Racer from Rigel III. I guess the Cosmic Carnival are hanging out there in between tours.


End file.
